Posted on 10/26/2006 10:52:49 PM PDT by Republicain
PARIS, Oct 27, 2006 (AFP) - France's interior minister ordered police to go on maximum alert in at-risk areas around the country after several buses were torched in suburbs ahead of the anniversary of widespread rioting last year.
"I decided to mobilize all mobile forces at our disposal for the security of those who use public transport," Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative frontrunner in next year's presidential elections, said overnight Thursday.
A car was burned and a police officer slightly injured near the home of Xavier Lemoine, the conservative mayor of the town of Montfermeil, near Paris, police said Friday.
"The officer was slightly injured when a stone was thrown as he tried to put out a fire after a car was torched in the street where the mayor lives," said a police spokesman.
The incident was the only one in the disadvantaged, high-immigrant Seine-Saint-Denis region where Montfermeil is located.
Sarkozy spoke after a meeting with transport officials on the eve of the first anniversary of three weeks of violent clashes between armed youths and police in suburbs throughout France, when more than 10,000 cars were set alight and 300 buildings firebombed.
The unrest cast an unforgiving spotlight on France's trouble in integrating its Arab-origin and black communities.
Sarkozy said that all "sensitive (bus) lines" would be protected at crucial times. "We will do everything possible to ensure that public services are not disrupted anywhere in this country," he said.
He did not give details but said that a meeting would be held Friday with police chiefs and transport companies "to finalize necessary measures".
Sarkozy called for an investigation into what led young people to set fire to buses after drivers who were attacked in the latest violence said that the assailants were very young.
The media should also act responsibly in reporting on the anniversary of last year's violence to avert copycat crimes, he said.
"We should not give any publicity to people who want nothing else," he said.
In the runup to the anniversary armed youths had hijacked and set fire to a bus in the suburbs of Paris Thursday while hooded gangs torched two others overnight Wednesday.
Around 10 masked men -- five of them carrying handguns -- forced the driver and passengers off a night bus heading from Bagnolet to Montreuil, on the eastern edge of the capital, at around 1:00 am on Thursday morning.
Both towns are in Seine-Saint-Denis, starting point of the riots that erupted on October 27 last year, spreading to hundreds of towns around Paris and other cities.
Earlier, hooded youths had set fire to a bus in the western suburb of Nanterre, not far from the La Defense business district, leaving passengers scrambling to escape, firemen and police said.
A dozen youths boarded the bus, threw an inflammable liquid inside, lit it and fled.
A third attack took place in Athis-Mons south of Paris, where police said three masked youths ordered passengers off a bus, hurled a Molotov cocktail inside and fled. The driver managed to put out the flames.
Outside Paris, in a suburb of the central-eastern city of Lyon, a bus was also torched by vandals as it was parked in a depot.
Police have warned of an increase in tensions in recent weeks. Officers have on several occasions been the targets of ambushes in the Paris suburbs.
The spark for last year's rioting was the accidental deaths of two local teenagers in the run-down Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, who were electrocuted while hiding from the police.
Town residents are to hold a silent march in tribute to the two boys on Friday, before unveiling a monument in their memory. Later Friday, the town has planned an evening of concerts, films and debates.
OVER OR Under the French would surrender LOL!
What can they do at this point?
1. DO NOT WAVE THE WHITE FLAG. Simply round up those guys with brute force and show them their limits. I would say that a boot camp over one year in tents with barbed wire around it and 12 hours of heavy work is enough to give them the impression that there is a price to pay. A adventure holiday of the special kind.
2. Change the economic system (the same could be said over Germany) to more capitalism. The country needs growth and work. People who have work and who have the self-affirmation from being useful do not torch cars without any need.
You should be in charge of France for(at least) one week. Your proposals make sense.
I expect we will be seeing this behavior here in the next few years.
Bring out the rubber bullets and fire hoses Jacque. That'll stop 'em.
That would make me the first German head of state of France since Charlemagne.
Quite large footsteps for a small freeper like me. Maybe I should ask my wife first before I say yes. ;-)
Nevertheless the time for social integrative BS gestures is over. That was only political auto-erotic (sorry for my unpleasant verbalism - but I do not know any other word for it) anyway. People who destroy cars and buses are terrorists. The French state has the duty to protect its citizens from that threat. Therefore they have to do something effective. A boot camp would be effective.
Beside of this the French state disregards its duty to give ALL of its citizens the chance to earn money in a honest and respected way. There is only one system that makes that possible: Capitalism. It is indeed so that many of those beurs have absolutely no chance to get a honest job. They are forced to live from welfare. It is no wonder that they are discontent and sour.
The responsibility for those riots have Chaques Chirac and his predecessors because they failed to do their job.
French eyes are locked on burning buses...meanwhile, immigrants will be raiding and torching public buildings there next, all while security is elsewhere.
And the media will blame the victims...not the Muslims.
Those riots have a mixture of causes of course. Interestingly muslims who have work and who have the access to education and chances tend to be much more moderate than young muslim males with absolutely no perspective of a normal, pleasable and satisfying life. To be a young muslim out of a banlieue means that you are trapped in the lowest social class you can think of. Since those guys have nothing else to be proud of they escape into their weird religion.
Because France has to live with its muslim immigrants in the future (the only way to get "rid" of them would be mass murder - thank God since the end of Hitler we overcomed such BS in Europe) it has to integrate them. This will only be possible if they are given the chance to be real Frenchmen (or real Brits, Germans etc.). To get that they need work, education and culture. It is the duty of the French administration to provide those chances to its citizens instead of welfare cheques.
Those beurs have to undergo a mixture of demand and assistance from the state to condition them for a normal life. On one hand they have to understand that they have to behave like everybody else on the other they need the chance to be like everybody else.
Well said. The US also has a huge number of immigrants. The major difference between the US and France is that those immigrants can easily find work in the US. And work is probably the most powerful method of assimilation (you have to speak English, dress like Americans, and follow the laws of Americans).
Another issue with France is that many of the rioters are not immigrants--they were born in France to immigrants. Again, many of them are not working and are therefore not assimilated. Of course, the problem gets worse over time. Who wants to hire an unassimilated punk with no real skills and who throws temper tantrums by burning cars? But again, he will always be a punk until he gets a job and learns responsibility.
As usual, socialism and social engineering create problems of which their designers have never thought.
Many folks complain about the press reporting on violence saying it encourages more violence (but apparently does not encourage action to stop it).
This is why the US became the first multicultural society without giving up culture. A model we Euros for sure can learn of.
Yeah, this is often overlooked by American critics. We added more jobs in the US in one year than the EU nations have added in 30. Plus, in European countries, an outsider is forever an outsider, even his grandkids don't belong. For all their Political Correctness posturing, the avenues to opportunity for immigrants are far more limiting in Europe than in the US. If you didn't go to the right school and get the right certificate and connect with the right politicians, you can't even open a flea market stand.
This is like adding accelerant to the whole Islamofascist movement in France, because they are putting up the phoney "you're welcome here" sign out while keeping them down through bureaucratic manipulation, which makes the Izzies even crazier.
People are now talking (quietly) about a civil war in France. They are speaking in the present tense.
---I have relatives there.
I agree. The main problem in France is unemployment. It's already very difficult for a native-french young people with high diploms or a good formation to find a job (the unemployment rate of the youth in France is the highest in Europe). So for an immigrant children, with no diploms, living in a 'no-go zone' and almost unable to speak french without an horrible banlieue's accent and a very limit vocabulary (except for insults), I let you imagine the difficulty. And without a job, no integration possible.
As long the employment market in France will be so rigid, there will be for these youth only two alternatives : criminality and/or islamism.
As a resident of France, I completely agree with you. The French system is so hostile to small businesses that it's really a wonder, to me anyway, that the French economy is growing. The (French) owner of one of my favorite crêpe restaurants was just telling me that he's thisclose to packing it all in and moving back to San Francisco, just because it's so hard to run a small business here.
The French are very stuck in their ways, so I expect any change will be painful, but they have got to do something.
...between armed youths...
...its Arab-origin and black communities...
...young people to set fire to buses after drivers who were attacked in the latest violence said that the assailants were very young...
...armed youths had hijacked and set fire to a bus...
...while hooded gangs torched two others...
...10 masked men -- five of them carrying handguns...
...hooded youths had set fire to a bus...
...A dozen youths boarded the bus...
...three masked youths...
...a bus was also torched by vandals ...
...in the run-down Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois...
AFP goes through such ridiculous verbal contortions to avoid mention of the "M-word"...
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